Alteryx Server Ideas

I just underwent an exercise of recovering my controller in the event of a catastrophic failure. One of the steps is to recover the DCME keys (DCM Encryption keys) - which is documented here: https://help.alteryx.com/20221/en/server/install/server-host-recovery-guide/dcme-keys-to-backup.html...

This DCME recovery needs to be revisited. This document assumes that the previous controller is running. In a disaster recovery situation, this is not possible. What, if any, can be done to recover the DCME keys if the host has is completely irrecoverable?

For context, having an irrecoverable host has happened. Complete hard drive failure (showing my age), nuked virtual machine and its backups (no one paid attention to the notices that the data center was shutting down), and fire.

Current State:

Currently, all workflows and applications are in list-form within "My Workspace" (formerly Private Studio) and Collections.  In My Workspace, I might have workflows and applications that support a broad range of domain spaces and audiences.  As the developer (or Artisan), they're all in My Workspace, but shown as an exhaustive list with no categorization unless I name them to represent not only the function of the workflow/application but also the domain. 

Once those same workflows/applications are moved to collections, there can exist confusion over whether the workflow/application is intended for a schedule, manual run, or application.  Separating by naming convention gets messy and degrades clarity for non-developer roles.

Proposed Solution:

I would like to see folders, only one or two levels deep, be added to My Workspace and to Collections.  This proposed solution would not alter permissions, as those would be common for the parent collection and any assigned roles would function the same for that entire collection.  The solution is simply adding organization to enhance the user experience.

For example:  I might have a Collection that is intended for my Finance team....

Finance_Collection / Scheduled_ETL_Workflows / Workflows

Finance_Collection / Scheduled_Analytic_Workflows / Workflows
Finance_Collection / Applications_for_AccountingDepartment_ReceivablesTeam / Workflows
Finance_Collection / Applications_for_AccountingDepartment_PayablesTeam / Workflows
Finance_Collection / Manual_ETL_Workflows / Workflows

Finance_Collection / Manual_Analytic_Workflows / Workflows

Finance_Collection / etc...

All persons who have been assigned the role connected to the "Finance Collection" will still see everything in all of the folders but would have a better sense of what "workflows/applications" are intended for their use according to the folders the workflows/applications are organized into.

Value Added (Why This Matters):

• Enhanced user experience (easier to find the correct workflows
• The volume of roles and collections can be reduced, thus reducing Admin strain
• The solution does not impact roles and permissions
• Overall management of workflows and applications is enhanced for the Artisans

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I welcome input and feedback from the community and would appreciate your support if you find this suggestion useful for your Alteryx experience!

Hi Team, 

The Alteryx API documentation for Audit was only available for certain entities(workflow, collection, etc.,) and not available for Schedule entities

If you create a schedule in Gallery, information about the schedule like creation date time, frequency, owner, type, last run, next run, etc. will be updated in MongoDB. If a user edits or modifies a schedule in the gallery, the edited/updated information is only available in MongoDB. There is no possibility of seeing audit information like old value(before change), new value, or operation (update, delete, insert).

We required the Audit information of the entire gallery operation such as schedule, Collection, Workflow creation, updation, and deletion. 

Regards, 
Ariharan Rengasamy

I develop workflows or analytical apps in the Designer and save them in a Gallery. If I need the setting "Always run this workflow with these credentials", I have to type in my username and password every single time I want to save it, even in the same Designer session. This is very annoying and results in saving the workflows much more seldom than I would do if I did not have to type in the credentials every single time.

My idea is to cache the credentials (login name and password) for one Designer session. It would be perfect if it was for the entire Designer session for multiple files. But even if it was specific to the opened file it would help.

Result would be:

• After loading the file, the user has to type in credentials only for first saving.
• Every subsequent save would be done without further interaction.
• After closing and re-opening the file, credentials have to be typed in again.

Option to Zip All Outputs

For workflows that produce various different output files, I think it would be nice if the Gallery had the functionality to create a single zip file containing all outputs. The user would opt in or out of this functionality using a checkbox in the Gallery workflow settings (for apps, this checkbox could also appear as an additional setting above "Questions"). After the workflow has been run, the user would only see the zip file in the output preview instead of each individual output file. 

This functionality would create a more user-friendly experience as it would eliminate the need for zip file creation workarounds, such as using the Run Command Tool or the "zipfile" Python library to create zip files (these options also do not generate a zip file in the Gallery output preview).

In one fell swoop, you can see if all the workflows included in the collection have run smoothly.

I did it with a workflow but it should be native.

Hello,

Tableau has a nice Postman Collection available... it's really easy to use since you can download or forkt it on Postman and all you have to do is to write the variable values.

I would like the same thing but for Alteryx.

Best regards,

Simon

When using a flow that produces multiple outputs each has to be selected in turn and downloaded, which is no effecient.

It would be a better user experience if standard selection box functionality where the user can select one or multiple files they wish to download, including a box to select all and where more than a singular file is chosen they are provided as a singular zipped download.

the idea would be to be able to chain Workflows (execute Workflow B at the end of Workflow A). Or to condition the execution of a Workflow in relation to another when there are dependencies.

Most companies work on a period level basis and that is every 4 weeks.  There is no way in Alteryx currently to schedule workflows to run only every 4 weeks, the monthly options do not match this cadence.  If the option was added to select "every X week(s) on X day" this would also encompass biweekly scheduling as well.  Outlook currently has exactly what would be needed (screenshot attached.)

Hi Team,

We used the 2021.3 version earlier, which included a user interface feature allowing for search by owner and a
few other filters. However, upon upgrading the server to the 2022.1 version, we discovered that this option was no longer present on the UI page. Moving forward, it is imperative that this functionality be reintroduced in future releases of Alteryx for better user experience.

Regards, 

Ariharan Rengasamy

It would be beneficial to be able to add a description to collections to explain the purpose of the collection, i.e. the types of content contained within or even a waiver stating "use of the contents in this collection is at your own risk, please ensure you validate the results are accurate" sort of thing.

Given some jobs are scheduled / can take a while to run it would be useful if Server provided the option to notify the submitting user when it has been completed, which a link to the results.

If you look at post: Re: How do I extract Server Job Run ID at runtime - Alteryx Community amongs others you can see there have been various attempts to create workarounds for this using a combination of API's & Mongo DB calls to build up the information to provide a URL in an email at the end of the flow. However, it feels like this should be an out of the box notification that can be enabled/disabled at the flow level with Alteryx Server.

Currently, we see the Districts and Collections now compressed into a list view. 

Previously, the Server had the widgets feature which really showcased the self-service nature of the Sever. Losing that just made decreased the emphasis on user experience. 

It would be great to allow Server Admins to decide whether they want lists or widgets to be available toggles as a design feature for both districts and collections will be of great help.

In addition, regardless of the option, the image size and wording size should be much larger - easier for people to see. Right now, we have to zoom to 150% to make it easier for ourselves to see. Having the ability to control font size, font control with bolds, italtics, etc. will be very helpful as well.

Improve Gallery scheduling to allow the end user to specify company denoted Holidays when scheduling a workflow. If the workflow is scheduled on a Holiday the schedule would not run. This should be configurable per workflow schedule. Example: A daily report Monday through Friday would be able to skip Holidays based off a Holiday exclusion list. 

The AlteryxService internal authenticated API that the nodes use to communicate with each other for status is not accessible to customers because it is using an undocumented authentication method. The data this appears to provide would be useful to server administrators to determine the true health of the individual nodes and for reporting purposes.

When I create a DCM Entry in Gallery, it would be great if the users I share it with would also be able to reference the credentials in their desktop designer when they sync their connections to the Gallery. 

When adding jobs to the queue via API call, you currently cannot specify the name of the job.

Running the job directly from gallery allows this as in the picture below, but there is no setting to do so in the API.

When a workflow is used in many different situations, being able to specify a name for the individual run will make tracking and troubleshooting easier.

when using the blob input for excel, server will output the input file in the output preview section.

please add an option to exclude it from output or remove this function.

Server

run log

workflow

only 1 tool in the workflow. blob input tool.

server version: 2021.4